Different Seasons
by vader-incarnate
Summary: A reflection on the cycle of the seasons and the dreams of humanity. What does it mean to be alive? Completed. {Inter-trilogy Vader angst, guest-starring Shmi, Qui, Obi, Padmé}
1. Summer

Title: "Different Seasons"

Summary: A reflection on the cycle of the seasons and the dreams of humanity. What does it mean to be alive?

Content: Inter-trilogy Vader angst. A/A. Guest-starring Shmi Skywalker, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala Skywalker.

Author's Note(s): You know you're insane when you watch _The Lion King_ and get a SW plot bunny from "The Circle of Life" theme. First of four stories, based on the seasons -- summer, autumn, winter, spring. The rest will come up soon. :)

Ooh, btw, this is officially my first Vader fic. Take a moment to appreciate the irony -- my username is vaderincarnate and I've ne'er written Vader fic in these two years ... ah well. Remember to review!

* * *

He dreams of Summer. 

For some, perhaps, the year starts at a different time, but -- for him -- always the summer. He remembers the twin suns, the desert sky, the golden sand ... but, more than anything else, he remembers a radiance that had nothing to do with the temperature.

If his Summer was not carefree in the way that it was for other children in different circumstances, he finds that he nonetheless has little to complain about. Looking back, certainly, he sees that Summer was the most carefree time of his life, at any rate; though it might not compare to others', it is enough for him to remember.

He remembers warmth that had nothing to do with the dusty heat and everything to do with the love and care and tenderness that a little slave-boy had never found lacking, no matter what else he didn't have. Remembers happiness amidst hardship, joy amidst sorrow -- there were moments during those long years when he hadn't minded the toil, when the uncomplicated pleasure of being alive with that sweet warmth at his back was simply enough.

Summer wears his mother's skin. Not the way he had last seen her, haggard and abused by weeks of torture. Nor the way he had seen her on that last day when he walked away for what was supposed to be forever. The Summer he remembers, the Summer he cherishes, has the look of a woman well into her prime -- she was never truly _young_, his mother -- but with a love and dignity that she wears like a cloak all the same.

And, when things are too cold -- for it _does_ get cold, even during the summertime -- Summer wraps her cloak around him to shield him from the storms of the world. Those nights, when the frightened young child he had been, long ago -- scared of the dark and of the ghouls and of the thousand and one other things that young children are scared of -- slunk into her bedroom for comfort, he always found it, and _that_ always meant more to him than whatever else he may have wanted for.

So, in his dreams, he walks up to Summer's door. The sun blazes at his back and -- in the dream -- he can feel its warmth, its caress, something that he hasn't felt physically for a decade or more. The harsh touch of the wind to his cheek, the grit of sand in the air, the perfect blue of the sky ... always, his dream-self will be tempted to linger outside the door, tasting and sampling the old flavors of Summer that he had never appreciated in life.

But he never does. His dream-self -- his old-self, without the armor, without the darkness, without the worries, and without the weight of guilt upon his shoulders -- scampers into the little house of his childhood, searching for Summer. Always, his dream-self is a little afraid -- though, in the dreams, he never quite remembers why -- of not finding her, of finding an empty house full of nothing but dust and memories ...

... and, just when he is beginning to feel a bit scared, he will find her. She'll be standing there, in the kitchen, perhaps, and he'll dash over to launch himself into her arms as well as his toddler's legs can manage, and everything else -- the fear, the worry, the world itself -- will cease to matter.

Because Summer takes him into her arms and, always, that is enough. It is _comfort_, perhaps, but also something else.

Safety.

Protection.

But not those, either, not quite -- it's not a feeling he can easily sum up in a single word, not something that can be adequately defined by even a library's worth of words. Because, when he remembers Summer, he remembers a Summer who cares for him, loves him, will do anything in her power to keep him safe from harm. An unquestioning, undying maternal love that would never be retracted or recalled, regardless of whatever happened -- Summer's warmth, if not tangible, is its own balm nonetheless.

And maybe it's that, just the knowledge of it, that makes him feel these things, this gentle luster that pervades his cold and broken body every time he dreams of Summer.

He doesn't remember much of Summer, not really, beyond the dreams. His memories of that halcyon time -- the only truly peaceful years of his life, though he wouldn't realize this until far later -- have been dimmed by long miles and longer years. More than that, though; the changes cannot be described in aspects of place or time, perhaps, but in what has happened since his last Summer. What has happened to him, what he has caused _to_ happen, what he has become ...

He is no longer Summer's child.

Yet the dreams, the dreams ... when he dreams of Summer, he _remembers_ that warmth, that comfort, that contentedness he can no longer feel ... and when he wakes, it's never quite enough.


	2. Autumn

He dreams of Autumn.

If Autumn was short, for him, it was precious all the same -- and he remembers those lessons that Autumn taught him, all the same.

Autumn wears the robes of a Jedi Master, a cloak made out of wisdom and strength as surely as it is made out of brown fabric. Each stitch in that cloak, each thread in that fabric, was created whole from blood and sweat and tears -- but not really that, either. There is a certain something intangible about Autumn, a sense of compassion and understanding that the nine-year-old boy can't help but love.

The aura that Autumn carries about him is the aura of someone who walked through fire and was tempered by it rather than destroyed. A tree, perhaps -- marked by time and wind and rain, but grown stronger and taller for it rather than being knocked down. The trunk remains strong, and if the leaves drop ... well, they will come back next year.

Because by the time that Autumn ends, he is not a boy anymore, not really.

By the time Autumn is laid out upon his burning bier, the nine-year-old child has found out about death and sorrow, loss and grief. Those are lesson he has not forgotten, lessons that, he suspects, he will never have the luxury to forget.

Autumn is about fallen leaves and fallen heroes, broken idols and broken dreams. It is about hopes that withered upon the vine, that were never harvested and left to rot in the field. It is about faith and fidelity and futures that might-have-been, that all somehow crumbled to dust with a single swift stroke of a bright red light.

When he remembers Autumn, he remembers the funeral, more than anything else -- it is a bit morbid, no doubt, but it remains true all the same. In his mind's eye, he can still the Jedi Master laid out in state, the flames glimmering as they devour the remains. Flickering dancers, or so they seem -- worshippers in a ceremony older than words and older than time. An ancient explanation of the Living Force, at least, that has did not perish through time ...

The god falls and is burned upon the flaming pyre, falling to ash to join again with the soil and be reborn in the coming year.

Autumn is a season for maturity -- harvesting those crops that have grown to ripeness through the efforts of the farmers, the crops that have born fruit in testimony to the hard work put into their production. And, when the harvesting is done, feasting and dancing and laughing ... but if Autumn ends too soon, if chance or fortune or the will of the Force cuts off Autumn before the crops have matured to their full potential ... well, there is little that can be done, isn't there?

Perhaps, had the child's Autumn been longer, he would have been more prepared for what awaited him yet -- he was not yet a man when his Autumn ended, his full maturity not yet reached. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened to the crop, had Autumn lasted a while longer -- would things have been different, perhaps? Would it have been a better harvest?

In daylight, he knows that pondering that question is useless -- the past is unchangeable, and it is futile to wonder about the ashes of maybe.

But in the Autumn, when the veil between life and death is the thinnest, the ghosts walk and the dead sing.

So, when he dreams, his dream-self walks out beyond the circle of mourners to approach the funeral pyre. Everything else is frozen -- the people standing around the bier, the flames that lick at the body -- save for the Jedi himself, in spirit if not in fact.

His dream-self approaches the fire cautiously though -- in the dream -- he does not, perhaps, wholly remember why. The searing heat of the fire, the half-remembered taste of pain, keep him at a discreet distance from the flames themselves as Autumn nears.

When Autumn smiles, though, his dream-self -- his old-self, not yet grown into his full height or his full maturity -- throws caution to the winds in favor of running forward into Autumn's embrace. It is all he can do not to sob, even in the dream, because of what he sees reflected in Autumn's eyes.

Understanding.

Compassion.

Force, for that alone he would do anything -- the regrets of a decade and more pile upon his shoulders, a lifetime of mistakes and blunders that brought everything to ruin. Brittle twigs on barren trees and all the fragile limbs reaching futilely for heaven. The accusations he saw in a thousand eyes, the fear and terror he brought to a galaxy -- in Autumn's eyes, there is something akin to mercy ...

And then his dream-self _is_ sobbing into Autumn's robe, holding onto it for something dearer than life itself. Not a drowning man clinging onto his last hope of rescue, but a sinful man clinging to his last hope for salvation.

When is a man no longer a man? When is a soul beyond redemption?

In daylight, he has the universe. He has a galaxy at his feet, sits at the right hand of his dark master -- anything he wants he will _have_ ... save for what he wants most of all. And in the dreams he receives his only solace -- in the dreams where brown eyes reflect a taste of forgiveness, a hint of what may have been ...

Autumn ended too soon.

And the dreams, the dreams ... when he dreams of Autumn, he cannot help but remember the sympathy, the compassion reflected in the eyes of the Jedi Master, things that he cannot help but covet ... and when he wakes, it is never quite enough.


	3. Winter

He dreams of Winter.

Winter's arrival came too quickly, perhaps, to a boy still used to the warmth of maternal embraces and the comfort of home. Whisked away from eternal summer and taken to a place with nothing of the warmth he had grown up knowing -- cold eyes, cold stares, cold regard.

He was a child of summer, unready for the trials of a Winter come too-soon -- his passions were fiery where they were expected to be cool, his hatreds strong and his loves stronger. The child's fires, though, were too hot for this place, this time, this season -- tame them, young one, tame them.

They taught him -- during Winter he learned all he needed to go about pursuing his destiny, the instructor's cool eye watching him practice his lightsaber, his diplomacy, his skills.

Cool. Calm. Stand tall, stand firm, be the rock even as the icy winds of the world whip past you, the glacial howling of snow and rain and elements arrayed against you -- stay steady, for, as Jedi, you will be _their_ inspiration.

But ... you don't _love_ the Chosen One, do you? You can train him, you can teach him, you can be in awe of his talents and his skill ... but you don't _love_ him, the way one human being loves another, the way a father loves a son or a teacher loves a student. Maybe he's your hope for salvation, your hope for restoring the balance between light and dark -- all right. But do you _love_ him?

His master, of course, was different. Not at first, but once the little boy -- Chosen One or not -- put his charms to work, the icy shield melted, and he, whose heart was still aching from the loss of his own master, let the boy past. He became the father, the friend, the teacher that the boy had never had before -- and loved him as a boy, treasured him as a person, not just worshipped him as Chosen.

But does it hurt more to know that, or less?

In his dreams, Winter comes to him -- ice-tinged eyes and flame-tinged hair, soft brown robe and cream-colored tunic. Soft-spoken words backed with durasteel, a touch of command behind the Jedi calm. Twinkling blue eyes that betrayed his amusement, though Winter always managed to keep the rest of his face composed -- he was only human, after all, and he was allowed that much, Jedi calm or not.

And, even in the dreams, his dream-self is never certain -- stars, what does he feel for this man? This man who was teacher, friend, father ... executioner?  
Because Winter's duality has always puzzled him, hasn't it?

He remembers the Temple -- his dream-self, a little boy still and not knowing any better, entering the Temple for the first time. Wide blue eyes and an insidious fear -- where would he go? What would happen to him? What was he expected to do?

And a warm arm upon his. His dream-self looks up into the taller man's face and sees ... comfort, perhaps? The beginnings of love? Those first few years, he worked hard for Winter's approval, Winter's smile, the father he never had, but had always been searching for.

And stars.

That last time.

Lightsabers, icy blue and firey red, clashing above the lava. Dancing and whirling as they had done in practice so many times, but now locked in mortal combat where only one would walk away. Yelling, shouting, blocking, attacking. A face twisted with anguish, a hand reaching for his own.

Grasping, scrabbling, falling, burning ...

But Force. What would he give to have those days back again, when Winter was his master and his friend and his father and all was well in the galaxy. Because Winter still holds that title, in his heart, regardless of the dark one who he calls master now.

But the dreams, the dreams ... when he dreams of Winter, he can't help but recall the companionship, the trust, the easy affection between them ... and when he wakes, it is never enough.


	4. Spring

He dreams of Spring.

Force, to inhale the sunlight, once again, to feel the light he can no longer touch, to return to the embrace of Spring. The warmth of asylum, the promise of beginnings, the taste of life ...

Spring is about _that_, about _life_ -- about birth and planting and growing things and blooming flowers. About love, perhaps, most of all -- not about a Jedi and a senator, caught by love and bound together with hearts denied by oaths and laws and commitments ... it's about the joining of a man and a woman, a woman and a man. Two human beings -- people, at the heart of everything else, _before_ anything else.

Because Spring takes his wife's form -- she to whom he gave his heart and she who keeps it, even now. Spring comes to him as he remembers her, dark hair and dark eyes and a face he knows better than his own, even after all these years. A face full of tears when last he saw it -- bitter tears and angry shouts, a house left empty and two hearts denied.

Somehow, it's _these_ dreams and _these_ memories that hurt the most, even after so long. Because, though the other seasons were torn from him by circumstance or death or the will of the Force ... he gave up Spring of his own free will, to pursue a mistress of a far different sort.

But when he dreams of Spring, it's not that last scene that he remembers -- bitter rain, each drop salty and hot, the very essence of sorrow, a wellspring of life and the loss that accompanies it. He remembers the other things, the other times, when they were happy in their marriage, peaceful and content and joyous in their celebration.

He dreams of Spring -- him and her, her and him, and does anything else matter? -- together in their bed. Was that the first night? Does it matter? First, last, or somewhere in the middle ... his dream-self doesn't care and, consequently, neither does his real-self -- it doesn't _matter_, nothing matters, as long as he is caught up in the passionate embrace of Spring. The love that is somehow always the same, yet never old, never tiring ... a decade and more since he felt her kiss, but he doesn't have to remember that, in the dream.

His love.

His angel.

His dream-self thinks about life, hopes that something of this union will bear fruit. To _create_ something. The promise of life springing from her womb and his seed ... Force, his dream-self wouldn't object to being a father -- children, a child, a boy or a girl. Or even both -- now wouldn't that be grand?

But those are stupid thoughts -- in daylight, he knows that. Their union never gleaned anything but endings, which go on and on. Nothing but bitter tears and empty dreams.

The soil of the grave does not suffer to yield the fruit of the vine.

Because he _is_ dead -- he's been dead ever since he abandoned Spring, since he left her warm embrace for a far colder mistress. His heart beats on, his limbs still move, his body still functions ... but, in truth, he is as dead as the metal prison he lives in, kept apart from the living and the memory of Spring's embrace.

In the dreams, though -- Force, the dreams. That night, surrendering to skin the color of honey and milk, the texture of flower petals and soft sheets. Abandoning the world for her embrace, for the call of love over logic ... arms, lithe and strong, a tumble of eager vines around his neck. Kisses tasting of flowers and of heaven.

Because his dream-self loves her. Hells, his _real_-self loves her, with a passion that will never die, no matter what happens between then and now -- he opens his mouth to tell her that, to tell her how much she means to him, how much she will always mean to him, how nothing in the world or the galaxy or the universe can ever change that --

And he finds that he doesn't have those words. His dream-self settles for a simple "I love you."

Spring looks at him, her dark eyes glistening with something he can't recognize. She plants a small kiss upon his cheek, but he can hear her whisper nonetheless. "No. You don't."

So his dream-self opens his mouth to ask her what she means -- of course he loves her, how can he possibly not love her? -- and finds, instead, that Springs is fading. Fading from his arms, becoming less corporeal, less real, less tangible ... he tries to grab her, to keep her with him, but she's fading with each passing second until he opens his mouth and screams himself awake.

In daylight, he knows better than to think of Spring, as difficult as it is to expunge her from his heart. Spring's embrace is long lost to him, and the innocence of those bygone days are lost from this galaxy, perhaps forever.

And even if he found her again, found his Spring ... what then? He'd be a fool to think she'd welcome him with open arms, the armor and the dark and the demons along with the man she once called husband.

But Force, to taste, once again, the flavors of virgin innocence and new life, things he hasn't believed in for far too long -- to surrender once more to the embrace of Spring. The hitch in her breath, the shudder of her shoulders, the upturn of her chin ... untended gardens wither and die; what would he find now in that that coveted patch of earth he last visited in another skin?

Would it still be familiar? Would it still even be home?

And maybe that's another part of this hell that is his existence -- to know you can never go home.

Though the dreams, the dreams ... when he dreams of Spring, he can't help but remember that unquestioning trust, that endless love, those things he hasn't tasted in a decade and more ... and when he wakes, it is never quite enough.


	5. Conclusion

He dreams -- and always, upon awakening, it's not enough.

It is _never_ enough, to dream of the seasons and not be a part of that cycle -- because he _isn't_ a part of that cycle anymore, hasn't been since he donned the black, since he _died_, just as surely as he would have if he had remained in that lava pit. He'd never appreciated it before, but now ... oh, to be able to mark change and cycle, to be a part of rhythm and wheel -- the seasons, Force, he misses the seasons.

It's _never_ enough to watch, to remember, to regret, to repent and -- sometimes -- to wonder if things may have gone different.

So, in time, he learns to hate this cycle, this endlessly spinning wheel in his dreams, in his thoughts, in his blood. At the side of his dark master, with the galaxy at his feet, he learns to hate the eternal cycle of life and love --

-- yet, always, he dreams.

****

Finis


End file.
